Special Open access session, organized by Gregorio Robles and supported by the Open access funds (NWO), is dedicated to discussion of open access to research data and tools.

As a starting point for discussion, Gregorio Robles presented a survey on open access initiatives. He has identified 15 repositories with software engineering data and contacted the main researchers of these repositories. In total, 12 answers were received. The survey covered such issues as goals of the repositories, project funding, project impact and concerns, as well as future directions. Next two well-known creators of software engineering repositories, Georgios Gousios and Michael Godfrey shared their experiences.

After the presentations a lively discussion has emerged covering such topics as sharing data vs sharing tools, threats to sharing, and evolution of the shared artifacts.